The balloon has gone up in West Asia but in a carefully calibrated manner after the Iranian consulate in Damascus was attacked by Israel.
Iran conducted a retaliatory strike using drones and missiles against Israel on Saturday (April 13). This was a response to the Israeli attack in Damascus (April 1) that killed seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two senior generals. Israel has neither taken responsibility for the attack nor denied its role. This is in keeping with the opacity that envelops such killings and the proxy warfare that has scarred the region for decades.
A calibrated response
Tehran stated that the Saturday strike was punishment for “Israeli crimes” and also added that the matter can now “be deemed concluded”.
The Iranians have claimed that their aerial assault was mounted with a mix of 200-plus armed drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Israel has claimed that most of the incoming drones/missiles were successfully intercepted by their much-vaunted air defence systems. Other accounts maintain that a small number of Iranian projectiles did find targets on the ground, including an Israeli air base.
The extent of the damage done is yet to be confirmed and the Israeli response will be mediated by the US posture — both in relation to the support it will extend to Tel Aviv and the warning directed to Tehran.
Hopefully, there will be no major escalation and the global community will be able to lower the temperature, but this is slender hope. There are many imponderables, including that of non-state entities (Hamas and Hezbollah among others) entering the fray that could lead to an unexpected and rapid spiral of macro violence, resulting in a wider inter-state war. This exigency would have grave implications for regional stability and global geopolitics.
The compulsions of politics — and war
Some significant strands of the April 1 attack merit notice. This is the first time that Iran has directly attacked Israel with long-range ordnance from its own soil; but what is instructive is the manner in which Tehran also sent unambiguous messages to the principal interlocutors that it was planning to do so.
This is the carefully orchestrated cum calibrated pattern of the Iranian attack and the assurance that the Damascus matter is now “concluded”, could be interpreted as a signal of Iran seeking closure.
However, the other principal interlocutors in this simmering situation — Israel and the US — will be both compelled and constrained to act according to their domestic political compulsions, which adds to the many imponderables at play.
Israel first. After the October 7 Hamas terror attack, it was evident that PM Netanyahu had to respond militarily but the scale of the Gaza reprisal — now into its seventh month — has pushed him into a no-win situation concerning Palestine. Domestic opinion in Israel is increasingly critical of how Netanyahu has handled the Gaza war and the hostage crisis to ensure his own political survival.
The likelihood of team Netanyahu using the April 1 Iran attack to bolster their flagging political position by initiating a resolute counter-offensive against Tehran can roil already troubled waters and lead to the first level of bilateral escalation.
Iran too has its domestic compulsions, which include the current Israeli prosecution of the Gaza war and the deeply discordant relationship that post-1979 Iran has had with the Jewish state. The Damascus attack and the killing of Iranian generals, (which Tehran is convinced was carried out by Israel ) had to be “avenged” to assuage the anger on the street and among the senior clergy and the Saturday attack was the calibrated response.
Whether this sequence of the April 1 Damascus killings followed by the April 13 “punishment” will remain sequestered or lead to another cycle will depend on the Netanyahu response. This brings US President Biden into the grid. Israel will need iron-clad assurances from the Biden team that if the Damascus balloon goes up further, the US will weigh in to support a beleaguered Netanyahu. This is yet another imponderable to be factored.
President Biden is under considerable domestic and global criticism over his reluctance to restrain Netanyahu in Gaza. But he also has to be mindful of the Jewish lobby in the US and the vote bank it can influence, which will shape the outcome of what will be Biden’s last election.
In a statement released by the White House, President Biden reiterated the “ironclad” American support for Israel’s security in a call with Netanyahu and the G7 leaders meeting on Sunday extended its support to Israel while urging restraint. It is understood that both France and the UK had provided military assistance to the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) in dealing with the Iranian drone missile attack.
Even as the politico-diplomatic track is ploughed at different levels from the UN to the major chanceries, the military dynamic will determine the contour that the Iran-Israel confrontation will finally take. The US has already moved its military assets into the region to signal robust deterrence presence but this also renders its ships and military bases in the region vulnerable.
In as much as the military responses are sought to be controlled and calibrated by both Iran and Israel to win the war of narratives in the domestic constituency — the possibility that “the drone that gets through” can trigger rapid escalation cannot be ruled out.
Uncertainty looms large.
The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi
